Clarence Williams III, who played the cool undercover cop Linc Hayes on the counterculture series âThe Mod Squadâ and Princeâs father in âPurple Rain,â has died. He was 81.
Williams died Friday at his home in Los Angeles after a battle with colon cancer, his manager Allan Mindel said Sunday.
A native of New York, Williams career spanned over five decades in theater, television and film. He was born into a creative family in 1939 and raised by his musical grandparents. His grandfather was a jazz composer and pianist, his father a musician and his mother, Eva Taylor, a singer and actress. He got his acting start on Broadway after a stint as a paratrooper and received a Tony nomination for his role in William Hanleyâs âSlow Dance on the Killing Groundâ in 1964.
The Killing was a show that understood
Twin Peaks better than most, yet still succumbed to the same troubles, and
Mare
The Killing and
Mare crib from Frost and Lynch extensively: the victims’ connection to sex work, a serial killer or kidnapper that’s targeting girls, and a town reeling from tragedy.
Mare borrows the small-town aesthetic and familial sexual abuse from
Twin Peaks, while
The Killing takes the ambient score and a casino on the outskirts of town. Both shows wear their influence on their sleeves yet miss the lessons from the decline of the original run of Lynch and Frost’s series: Solving the mystery, be it too soon or at all, kills the momentum.